Fat Injections Can Enhance Breasts
Oct. 26 — Breast lifts can raise, shape, and firm sagging breasts. If a
woman wants to add volume, she may need to get breast implants too, but fat
injections can also do the trick, according to research presented at the annual
meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) in Seattle.
The ASPS and its sister organization, the American Society of Aesthetic
Plastic Surgery, state that fat injections to the breast can be used to enhance
breast appearance after reconstruction or to soften the appearance of implants,
but the groups don't yet recommend fat injections for cosmetic
augmentation.
In the new study, all 46 women who received fat injections in their breast
after a breast lift showed improvements in the size and shape of their breasts
after one year. The breasts were soft and had a natural look and feel, says
researcher Kamran Khoobehi, MD, a plastic surgeon in Metairie, La.
Injecting fat from the buttocks, thighs, or other body areas where it is
more plentiful into the breasts has been mired in controversy. There were
concerns that the fat may calcify and obscure readings on breast X-rays for
mammograms or possibly be mistaken for early breast cancer.
Fat Injections and Mammograms
“There is not an issue at all with imaging of the breast,” Khoobehi
says. ”It is easier to see breast tissue in breasts that were augmented
with fat than implants.” In the study, there were no abnormalities seen on
mammograms compared to preoperative mammograms. There is also no evidence
showing that injecting fat replete with stem cells into the breast will induce
the growth of cancer cells, he says.
That’s not to say that fat injections to the breast is for every woman. “The
ideal is someone who is older than 30, has had multiple pregnancies and …
just wants a more natural-looking and feeling breast,” he says.
Another study presented here showed that fat taken from the thighs via liposuction may be an alternative to breast implants.
The study of 50 women showed that there was an average increase of 210
milliliters of breast volume after 6 to 12 months.
“That’s not a lot of volume,” says Walter
L. Erhardt, Jr., MD, a plastic surgeon in private practice in Albany, Ga., and
a past president of ASPS. “It is about seven ounces and the average glass of
water is just eight ounces,” he says, “We are talking about 14 tablespoons of
liquid.”
“The fat injection procedure is more expensive and takes much longer than a
breast lift with implants or breast
augmentation with implants alone,” Erhardt says.
Questions, Concerns Linger
Other questions and concerns remain, he tells WebMD. It is also unknown how
much fat is needed to adequately enlarge a breast because not all fat survives
the transfer, and the success of the surgery is largely dependent on providers'
skill and technique, he says.
“The fat has to develop a blood supply and if it doesn’t develop a blood
supply, it dies and goes away, and in the past that has been problem,” he says.
“If the fat does develop a blood supply, it becomes a living tissue and can
grow if a patient gains weight or shrink if she loses weight,” he says. This
was also an issue in the liposuction study.
Put another way: “If the fat came from your abdomen, and you have tendency to gain tummy fat your
breasts will grow.”
That said, “Fat injections to the breast do eliminate some of the problems
of an implant, like wrinkling and dimpling, but there are a new set of
problems,” he says. The bottom line? Injecting fat into the breasts “is a long
run for a short slide, but there will likely be a niche for this surgery.”
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